The Resistance
by anoname
Summary: The only living person in her town for the past several months, former teacher Trix has decided it is her new mission to release the undead from the plague that has robbed them of their humanity, although this forces her to change from who she used to be.
1. Chapter 1

_The Resistance_

**I own nothing! I'm doing this only because I'm addicted to the show.**

**This is the first fan-fiction I've ever done. Please be gentle with me!**

Trix finished double-checking the Glock,inserted a clip, and slid it into the shoulder holster packed with extra ammo. Next, the two combat knives with 10-inch blades went into their thigh-holster sheaths. Finally, she strapped the forearm-mounted crossbow in place on her left arm, making sure plenty of extra bolts were secured in the upper-arm quiver. You could never be too careful, especially now when the stakes were so high. It made her a bit nervous to go without some type of bludgeoning tool, but she wanted her hands free for the other weapons. Besides, she had already found out the hard way that the pistol or the crossbow could double as a bludgeoning weapon if need be.

The leather pants, jacket, and boots she wore felt snug around her arms and legs as she flexed her muscles, mentally feeling for any physical deficiency, anything that might trip her up. Leather was a bit warm for the weather, but it sure came in handy if a walker tried to clamp its jaws on you. Her hands remained bare, though. It was nearly impossible to pull the trigger, reload, and all of that with gloves on.

Finally, she took handfuls from the bucket of mud brought up from the garden this morning and began to smear it into her hair and across her cheeks. When she looked into the mirror, she saw something inhuman, wide eyes peering through the layers, surrounded by wild, blue-dyed hair that stood on end, held in free-fall by the drying clayey mixture.

'A bit over-the-top, but my ancestors would've been proud,' she thought with an inner chuckle.

After all, she was named for the star Bellatrix, which in Latin means "female warrior" and is part of the constellation Orion the Hunter. It's what came of having a father who was an avid astronomy buff. Since the name was an awful mouthful, it had been shortened down to Trix during her childhood. Recently several namesakes had suddenly popped up in popular literature and movies, and she had been glad that she wasn't going to be compared to any of them, thanks to the nickname.

'Not that any of that matters now,' she thought. 'My name could be Mickey Mouse, and it wouldn't matter.'

The idea for the strange get-up came from the historic accounts she had studied in World History in college of Roman soldiers momentarily stunned by the sight of Celtic warriors, painted with mud and blue dye, charging screaming into battle. In some instances, that moment had helped the Celts overcome the much more advanced Roman army. She could understand now why they had done it, besides the temporarily confusion of opponents. The tactic inspired her to charge into a fight against a type of force the world had never seen until now, becoming a Boudicca-type warrior woman in order to do something so unreal, something Trix would never have been able to pull off in her former life. Afterward, she realized that the walkers didn't seem to catch her scent as easily, buried beneath the leather and clay, so she continued to do so.

_I won't let you turn around and tell me now I'm much too proud to walk away from something when it's dead...this time baby I'll be bulletproof..._

Her heart thumped to the beat of the bass as the song lyrics pounded into her brain through the earphones, effectively blocking any apprehension which might get in the way of following through with the plan. Well, that was true, for the most part at least, as long as she kept everything in check, squelching any inkling of fear before it could bubble to the surface and compromise her. Mental or emotional weakness was a strict no-no in this world where the dead walked and the living became the dead unless they remained strong.

Trix grabbed the scope from the kitchen table on her way out of the back door. After a quick climb up the side of the windmill, she swung the scope to where she had seen the walkers last night and looked through the sight. Sure enough, she could detect movement near the buildings on Main Street. Once they realized they wouldn't find anything-or anyone-to eat, they would move on. Since Trix's house sat on top of a ridge, the walkers wouldn't be likely to make their way up to it, unless the wind carried the smell of her or the animals down far enough for them to catch it. She could just sit tight and wait until they'd gone to hunt elsewhere. But she'd realized early on that she couldn't do that.

'I'd better get moving if this is going to happen today,' she thought. The goat was already tied in the back of the truck along with the containers of diesel fuel and the bag of fertilizer. Trix knew that looking at him would be upsetting, so she refused to allow her eyes to move beyond checking the ropes and supplies, focusing solely on the task at hand. Everything was in place. The Molotov cocktails were in the crate in the front seat, along with a lighter. Her black Avalanche was waiting on Main Street, pointed in the direction of the house with keys ready in the ignition.

Moving faster now, she hopped into the driver's seat of the Chevy, started it up, and sped toward town. 'Too bad this truck will soon be toast, along with the goat, but they have a higher purpose, I guess,' she reasoned. She drove quickly until she got to Main, where she slowed in order to catch the walkers' attention. It didn't take long, as the goat sensed danger and began to bleat miserably. Trix turned the ipod up even louder to cover the sound. There were probably 15-20 walkers following the truck now. Trix sped up a little and turned into the church parking lot at 2nd street. The asphalt showed the burned and gory signs of the several previous ventures she had carried out there before. She turned the truck and braked to a halt carefully. Shutting off the engine, she grabbed the crate, exited through the passenger side door, opposite from the approaching walkers, crouched and ran to duck behind the sheet-metal fenceline at the far edge of the property.

Peering through a small hole, Trix made sure she had escaped notice. All of the walkers appeared to be gathering around the truck, drawn by the goat. She waited for a couple of stragglers to stagger nearer, then lit a Molotov cocktail and threw it over the fence toward the truck bed. It hit a few feet shy of its intended mark, doing nothing more than creating a circle of fire in a three-foot diameter. This caused some of the walkers to begin to back away from the truck.

'Crap! I've gotta practice my throwing aim,' Trix thought, as she quickly lit a second wick and threw again. Once more, the bottle didn't hit the truck directly, but this time the burst of flame was close enough to set one of the diesel containers on fire. The flames burned through the ropes holding the goat in place, and he jumped from the truck bed and ran down the street, singed but uneaten. Just as the walkers began to turn toward where the goat had gone, the flames lit the bag of fertilizer. It exploded into the crowd of walkers, breaking them apart.

Trix could feel the heat and shock of the explosion hit the sheet metal, but the fence held, protecting her. She was glad for the earphones, as she had learned the hard way what the sound of the explosion would do to her eardrums. The first time, without the music, her ears had rung for days.

No time to waste. She needed to round up those who had escaped the flames. Turning, she screamed before she could stop herself as she saw what she could not hear over the music. Eight walkers had come up behind her while she had been facing the other direction.

'There must be a bigger group in town than I thought,' she said to herself as she yanked the earphones out of her ears. The walkers followed as she moved quickly around the fence, back toward the parking lot. The few there that had survived completely unscathed were now also moving toward her thanks to her screams. She was sandwiched in-between the two groups, which were approximately 20 feet away on either side and closing in.

'Think, think, think...Plan? Okay, I'm drawing a blank, so here goes nothing.' Since the range was too close and there were too many for the crossbow to be effective, Trix pulled out the Glock and prepared to fight until she couldn't fight anymore. If she could just put most of them down, maybe she could make it back to the Avalanche a couple of blocks away and get out of there.

She began to fire at the walkers' heads, missing more than she was hitting. She felt herself shaking, beginning to lose control. All of a sudden, she thought she heard a car coming.

'Probably just wishful thinking, as if my knight in shining armor would appear right when I need to be rescued.' Willing herself to continue, she made a shot, taking down another walker, but there were still five closing in. The car pulled down the street, slowing in front of the church, then sped up and turned, screeching, into the parking lot. It was her Avalanche.

'You've got to be kidding,' she thought as the truck skidded to a halt beside her. The driver's door on the other side from where she was popped open, and as Trix dropped the Glock and unsheathed her blades, she was aware that someone was firing a crossbow from the top of the vehicle, dispatching three more walkers as she took out the remaining two with the knives.

Turning a slow circle, arms extended with a blade in each hand, Trix made sure this time that there were no more walkers nearby. Only then did she allow herself to drop into a squat on the pavement, willing herself to stop the violent shaking.

"You okay?" a male voice asked. "That was a close one." The owner of the voice had moved around the car and was holding his hand out to help her up. The sun was directly behind him, casting him in silhouette so that she couldn't see his face.

Song Lyrics: _Bulletproof_ by La Roux


	2. Chapter 2

"What the-!You fall in a mud bank or something trying to get away from the walkers?" asked the man who had just kept her from becoming walker-jerky.

Trix instinctively touched her hair, realizing how crazy she must look. She was ashamed of how weak her legs felt, how much she had had to rely on the man's strength to help her up. Trying to sound confident, she reached down to get the Glock and said, "I promise to explain and to thank you later for saving my life, but for now, I have to finish this. It'll be dark in a couple of hours, and I don't want to get caught in town." She hoped he didn't notice how much she was still shaking, as much from the shock of seeing another living, breathing human being as from the close call with the horde of walkers.

She checked each body to be sure that it was fully dispatched. Then, grasping the bodies by the legs, she started pulling them together in a heap. As soon as her purpose became obvious, her rescuer joined in. When the walkers were in one pile, Trix went back to the fenceline to retrieve her crate. "You might want to stand back," she warned. He moved away from the heap, behind the Avalanche. Joining him there, Trix lit a Molotov cocktail and threw it on the pile. The clothing of the walkers caught fire immediately, quickly spreading to consume the mound of bodies.

"We should go," she said, waving a hand in the direction of the Chevy. The truck bed was still smoldering, and the fumes were noxious. "You never know if it might explode again. I've learned it's pretty unpredictable."

"Don't have to tell me twice," he said, moving to the driver's side door of the Avalanche.

Trix got into the passenger side, deciding not to claim right of ownership on the vehicle just yet. After all, this man had just risked his life to help her.

"What was that back there, in the back of your truck?" he asked as they drove out of the parking lot and back toward Main Street.

"Diesel fuel and fertilizer," she answered. "And walker parts now, I guess."

He laughed. It had been so long since she'd heard such a thing, that the sound made her jump. "Dang, girl, you make it a habit to drive around with explosives in the back of your truck?"

"Actually, you're driving my truck," she explained. "I had it ready for my get-away. The Chevy was just something I used for my plan."

"You'd burn up a perfectly good truck like that?" he asked.

"There are plenty of vehicles around cluttering up roadways and parking lots, left behind when this horror movie became real. I figure if I can use some of them to do my part to rid the earth of a few walkers here and there, it's not going to hurt anything."

"So lemme get this straight. You did all of this on purpose?" he sounded incredulous.

She nodded. "It's not the first time. This is what I do. I've been studying the walkers, their behaviors, how they often move together in packs. When a group of walkers comes around, I get rid of them."

"Fair enough. My name is Daryl, by the way."

"I'm Trix. Again, thank you." As she spoke, she released the spent clip from the Glock, set a new clip on the dashboard, slammed the Glock onto it, and cocked the lever to chamber a round.

"Where did you learn to reload like that?" Daryl asked.

Her answer was quick, "Tomb Raider of course!"

"You're pulling my leg!"

"Serious as I can be," Trix insisted. "Loved the games; loved the movies. I had no idea how it would come in handy. It's just too bad I can't jump and climb like she does!"

"So how'd you just happen to be in the right place at the right time back there?" she asked.

"Me and my group have been holed up at a farm about 15 miles from here. Local supplies are getting scarce, so me and one of the others were sent to scavenge from other towns," Daryl explained. "In fact, I was looking at this truck and waiting on him to get done in the grocery store, when I heard the explosion and saw the smoke. I jumped in and drove over to see what had happened. Couldn't believe it when I drove up and saw this crazy leather-and-mud-covered figure givin' em what-for."

"The Food Mart? That's not a secure location. But I think I have all of the walkers cleaned out of town for now. Your friend is probably fine," she reasoned.

"I wouldn't exactly call him a friend," Daryl responded. A man with a crew cut and special forces-style cargo pants and black t-shirt, loaded with grocery bags, came charging to the vehicle as they pulled up in the Food Mart parking lot.

Crew cut saw Trix in the passenger side and got into the back, yelling immediately. "Man, don't ever take off on me like that again! I heard an explosion, and next thing I know, you've peeled out in this truck. I had no idea what was going on."

"Sorry, it was my fault," said Trix. "He came to my rescue."

Crew cut guy looked at her like she was something that crawled out of a swamp, "Oh, yeah? What are you supposed to be?"

"Oh, um, the mud. I'll explain that now. It's a throwback to the ancient Celtic warriors. Makes me feel powerful enough to go into battle." It sounded kind of silly out loud. She continued the story, talking about Boudicca, the Celtic warrior woman and explaining the missions she undertook to get rid of walker groups.

"That's cool and all, but it seems awfully dangerous. Why not just leave it be unless one comes after you? This is a small town, but you have no idea what its like in the cities. We came through Atlanta." Crew cut shook his head. "Don't you think there are too many of them for you to even make a dent in their numbers?"

"There were 7 billion people on the planet the day the scourge began," she explained. "For the past few months I haven't seen one living being. Until today, for all I knew, I was the only one still living among 6,999,999,999 dead and undead. I know that I can't singlehandedly overcome this plague, but I figure it's like that starfish story. You know, the one that used to circulate on the internet? I free them one at a time, and I think, 'At least I made a difference to that one.' By the way, my name is Trix."

"Shane." He stared at her with a disdainful curl of his lip to let her know that he still thought she looked ridiculous.

"Look, it's getting late. It'll be dark soon. Why don't you stay with me tonight. You can return to your group tomorrow. I've got a spare room," she offered.

Daryl and Shane looked at each other in the rearview mirror.

"Okay," said Shane.

With a few directions given to Daryl, they made it up the ridge and to the house in a few minutes. Trix took a quick shower, then started making dinner while Daryl and Shane got cleaned up also. While they ate a simple dinner of potatoes and salad, Shane questioned her about her choice of weapons.

"To be honest, I struggled with that at first," she explained. Shotguns, while pretty effective at blowing heads off of walkers, were bulky to carry and didn't hold as many rounds as pistols that took clips. Automatic rifles had plenty of rounds, but were too touchy to double as bludgeoning tools, which I often needed. After quite a bit of experimentation, I found that a weighty pistol, like the Glock, could do everything I needed it to, although it did put the gore closer to hand, literally, when used to bash in a walker's head. That's where the knives came in handy. When stuck at close range, a quick in-and-out of the eye socket or temple is pretty effective as long as I'm diligent in keeping them sharp. The crossbow was a no-brainer, since I learned how to shoot from my ex while we were married. He was an avid hunter, competing in field archery. Before the relationship turned into a nightmare, he taught me how to mount the arrows and helped me practice until I could hit the targets. Compounds, recurves, crossbows, I've had a little experience with them all, although expertise in none. But one look at the arm-mounted crossbow in the gun store in town, and I knew that was my weapon. I never hunted before though, had never wanted to kill a living thing, so after the outbreak, I had to adjust to hitting moving targets. There were some close calls, but I always came through, objective achieved. That's how I knew that what I was doing, what felt right, releasing them, was what I was meant to do."

"You're a lefty?'" asked Shane.

"Nope." Her answer was short and to the point. So far she didn't care much for Shane. He seemed like a good guy, but she sensed something under the surface. He reminded her a little too much of her ex, and if so, he was every bit as dangerous as the walkers.

"Then why do you mount it on your left arm?" Shane continued.

In her peripheral vision, Trix could see that Shane's question had caught Daryl's attention. He was curious about her bow but, for whatever reason, hadn't asked about it himself. "I figured out that on my right side, the predominant side, it felt like it was in the way. And for some reason, trying to hold my arm to sight it just felt awkward. But when I tried it on the left, I realized I could just hold my arm straight out to the side and turn my head sideways to sight it. It felt as natural as breathing. If it could ever be natural to kill something."

Shane emitted a "huh" that would've been categorized as a laugh if not so negative-sounding."Hey, we're just doing what we have to do to survive."

Trix shook her head, "No, that's not why I'm doing it. After this thing started, and I lost my daughter, I decided I wouldn't try to fight it. I'd just let it take its course. If I got bit and turned into one of them, so be it. The only thing I knew I wouldn't do was kill myself."

"What changed your mind?" This time it was Daryl asking the question. The look on his face told her it had popped out before he had thought to suppress it.

Trix tilted her head to the side in concentration as she tried to explain herself. "The first time one of them came after me. I didn't run. I forced myself to stay and watch it coming. I wanted to try to understand what was happening. It was David Chien, one of my former students, one of the most compassionate and intelligent kids I ever taught. Got a degree in micro-biology and became a medical researcher at the university hospital. I'm sure he came back to try and save his parents from the outbreak." Trix shook her head. "When I looked into his eyes, I could see that it wasn't David anymore. Something had taken over and stripped him of his humanity, his dignity. I had to give it back. This horrible thing had control over him, and there was nothing he could do about it. He would have hated being like that, hurting others, being a mindless monster. So I did what he couldn't do, what I knew he would have wanted. I stopped the insidious force that had robbed him of himself."

"How do you know that you're doing it for the right reasons? Maybe this is the way things are supposed to be, some divine punishment or something. At least when we kill walkers, we're just doing it to survive, not planning a mass attack." Shane's tone indicated that he was skeptical of her motives.

"I pray about it every day. I'm not saying I've heard a clear-cut answer, but I have been amazingly successful in carrying out every operation I've undertaken. Until I feel like I'm supposed to stop or do something different, I plan to continue."

"After everything you've said about not wanting to hunt, this doesn't seem to bother you. You took out 20 walkers today without batting an eye. You seem like you were born to this," said Shane.

She stood quickly, knocking the chair over behind her. "You don't have to accept me. You don't have to stick around. But don't ever act like I enjoy any part of what I'm doing. In fact, I hate every minute of it. Seeing their faces afterward, they're almost human again. That's what keeps me going, keeps me from collapsing or giving in to what may be inevitable for all I know. Maybe we'll outlast this plague, or maybe they'll just keep coming until we're all overcome. All I know is, I won't let the people I've known and cared about suffer once infected." Trix, obviously trying to hold her emotions in check, strode to the back door, opened it, and went outside, slamming it shut after her.

"Good job," Daryl commented. "Insult the woman who is giving us a clean bed and a hot shower tonight."

"Shut up," said Shane.

Location: Senoia, GA


End file.
